1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to security systems for data and, more particularly, to security systems that produce audit files.
2. Description of the Related Art
Security systems can be used to restrict access to files (e.g., documents) through use of cryptology. Such security systems are often called file security systems or document security systems. Typically, the files (e.g., documents) are encrypted using a public key and then later decrypted by only those authorized users having an appropriate private key. It is advantageous to monitor security events of file security systems that occur over time. In this regard, file security systems can audit or log security events to an audit file (or log file). An audit file allows a security administrator to later review the security events that have occurred over time with respect to the file security system. Examples of security events could be failed attempts to open files, changes to authorized users, new security classifications, etc.
Furthermore, after audit files have been made, the audit files can be reviewed. The audit files enable a security administrator to diagnose conditions of the file security system. Typically, file security systems are often distributed across multiple machines and multiple locations, but are interconnected via a network. In contrast, the security administrator often resides at a central location. Hence, the file security system needs to transfer audit files to the central location. Unfortunately, however, if the audit files are locally created by local machines and then transmitted to the central location, the transmission of the audit files can involve the transfer of large amounts of data, which can hamper the ability of the file security system to operate as intended. Further complications result from the distributed, multi-tier file security system that uses multiple (possibly redundant) servers in multiple tiers.
Thus, there is a need for efficient and reliable methods to transmit audit files to a centralized audit location in an efficient and reliable manner so that subsequent audit analysis can be performed.